‘No, we can’t.’ Hayley shook her head. ‘I’ve been a member of Majestic Cleaning for only a few hours. I’m pretty sure in all those terms and conditions I haven’t read yet there will be a big fat piece about confidentiality, and opening clients’ drawers will be punishable by the electric chair.’
‘New York doesn’t have the death penalty actually. And only five states still use the electric chair. There’s Alabama, Florida—’ Angel started.
‘How do you even know that?’
Angel put her hands on her hips. ‘So what do we do?’ She looked at her watch. ‘We have an hour left.’
Hayley looked around the lounge. Despite the warm gold, red and brown furnishings, the atmosphere was cold. The cream-coloured mantle surrounded an open fire that didn’t look like it had been lit for a while. The ornaments were all square-edged and uniform – they didn’t look like trinkets picked up from travels or well-loved reminders of experiences. And there wasn’t a sniff of Christmas anywhere.
‘Icould open the drawers,’ Angel stated. ‘She thinks my name’s Charlotte and I’m not technically employed so I technically wouldn’t be breaking the rules.’
Was this a bad idea? She should be taking advantage of the fact there wasn’t much to do. But, on the other hand, she was a part-time party planner. Fashion, dressing and décor was her thing. She had an excellent eye and there was no doubt this place was certainly lacking in something. She turned to Angel. ‘I’ll keep that Sophia busy; you check the drawers.’
It was a completely altered space. The fire was pumping out heat, crackling with bundles of twigs Angel had obtained from thegarden and some coal Sophia had reluctantly found for them. Hayley was sure the housekeeper thought they were certifiable, especially after Angel had barricaded the door and said she would have no access until they were finished.
Hayley stood back from the flames and admired their handiwork. They’d found votives to put in the bare candle cups, and three framed photographs in a drawer. Cynthia and a man both looking so happy, dressed in bright, flashy clothes, then two bare-chested boys of about ten, arms around each other, ice cream staining their lips, and finally another of the darker-haired boy a little older, a certificate held proudly in his hands. Angel had trailed a string of white lights they’d found in a box of Christmas decorations in the cupboard around the candles and the photos. It transformed the room from something neat, clean-lined but cold into somewhere homely, a house with the family back at its heart.
She looked to her left as Angel let out a grunt of dissatisfaction from her precarious position on something antique-looking.
‘Don’t you fall off that and break something. It looks expensive,’ Hayley said, moving across the room.
‘I love your concern for me, Mum.’ Angel stretched a little further and looped a green, gold and red garland over the curtain pole.
‘If it’s remotely Edwardian or Victorian or even from the fifties, I think I’ll need to clean for an era to pay for it.’
‘Please, Miss Majestic Cleaning. You need to let me in now. Mrs Cynthia will be back at any moment.’ It was Sophia’s voice from behind the door, blocked off by a heavy nest of tables.
‘I wish we had a tree,’ Angel mused, getting down from the table and dusting her footmarks off with the sleeve of her top. It was probably the most dust the table had ever seen.
‘Here or at Uncle Dean’s?’ Hayley asked.
‘Both.’ Angel lifted the magazine rack up from the side of the sofa. ‘Where shall I put this?’
Squinting at the newspaper through the slats in the wood, Hayley moved closer to her daughter, her eyes on the photograph on the front page. ‘Is that…?’
‘What?’ Angel asked.
Hayley plucked the newspaper from the rack and straightened it out.
‘Miss Majestic Cleaning! I must insist you let me in here now. This is not what happen.’
‘Maybe we should let her in now,’ Angel suggested.
Hayley didn’t respond. She was too busy looking at the photo of Oliver and reading the article about the serial single granting wishes to the female population of New York.
‘Mum!’ Angel said a little louder.
Something was tugging on her insides. This article was picking him apart, painting him as a megalomaniac, a loner who used women.
‘Is that Mr Meanie?’ Angel asked, leaning in to get a better look at the photograph.
‘Don’t call him that, Angel. It’s not nice.’
‘He doesn’t remember the names of anyone who works for him.’
‘Do you think Donald Trump remembers the names of all the people that work for him?’ Hayley countered.
‘Uncle Dean doesn’t work for Donald Trump.’
